How do I add a child to a Person or Family?

Children are not added to a Person. Children are added to a Family. A Child may belong to more than one family.

Adding a child from the Relationship View

A child may be added to a family in several ways, depending on the context.

The Relationship View displays the active person. From this View, you may:

Add the active person as a child of a family

Add another person as a child of one of the families in which the active person is a parent

Adding the Active Person as a Child in a family

You may either add the Active Person as a child of a new family, or as the child of an existing family.

To add the Active Person as a child of a new family, select the Add New Parents button from the toolbar (in older versions of GRAMPS, this button was simply called Add). This will bring up a new Edit Family form with the Active Person listed as a child. You can then add parents by selecting existing people from the database or by creating new people.

To add the Active Person as a child of an existing family, select the Add Existing Parents button from the toolbar (in older versions of GRAMPS, this button was simply called Share). This will allow you to select an existing family, and adds the Active Person as a child of that family.

Adding a Person as a Child of the Active Person

You may add a child to a family in which the Active Person is a parent in one of two ways. If the family already exists, then it will appear in the Family section of the display. Click on the edit icon, and the exiting family will be displayed in the Edit Family form.

If the family to which you want to add a child is not displayed, then you should select the Add Partner button (in older versions of GRAMPS, this button was simply called Spouse). This will display an Edit Family form in which the Active Person is listed as either the father or the mother. At this point, you may add children and/or a spouse.

Adding a child from the Family View

Family view

If you wish to add a child to an existing family from the Family View, find the Family in the displayed list. You may either select the family by clicking on the Edit button in the toolbar, or double-clicking on the family in the list. This will display the Edit Family form for this person. At this point, you may add the child.

If you wish to add a child to a new family (a family that does not yet exist in the database), click on the Add button on the toolbar. This will bring up an Edit Family form. On this form, you may add parents and children.

How do I add twins/triplets/etc?

When you look at the list of children in a family, those with the same birthdate are obviously twins. But if you don't know the birthdate, or only know the year, you need some other way to indicate the relationship. You can do this by having them share a single birth event.

Take for example, the twins Thomas and Peter. When you create the Birth event for Thomas, make the Description say "Birth of Thomas and Peter". Then add a reference to that same event to Peter's event list, either by drag and drop, or by using the Share an existing event button. Set the Role for that event for both people to "Primary".

Now when you view the event list for either Thomas or Peter, you will see the Description reminding you that they are twins. And as you add details such as birth date to the birth event for either of them, those details will automatically display for the other as well.

Adding other informations

Adding an occupation or other special information

It is sometimes indicated in old documents that the person's activity was brewer, nails maker, woodchopper, etc. Edit the person and select the Attribute Tab. There add a new Attribute to add and select the wished information. Type what you want to add.